


Mala Ipsa Nova

by A_Beautiful_Beast



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag: s05ep12 Safe House, M/M, the angst remix lads, things go wrong! horribly wrong!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-18 20:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14859998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Beautiful_Beast/pseuds/A_Beautiful_Beast
Summary: Kevin is certain he does not want to die, not here, in front of his husband, bleeding from his decimated knee and laying stunned on this dirty warehouse floor.(the warehouse scene from 5x12, except this time in the bad timeline)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn't get this idea out of my head and i needed to write it & make you all suffer with me. things go wrong in this one. don't look for any happy endings here.

Sitting in the car and glancing unhappily between the key in the ignition and the dirty, dilapidated warehouse, Kevin suddenly, viscerally understands his husband's inane propensity to make reckless decisions in what are possibly life-or-death situations.

Naturally fastidious, Kevin himself would love to monologue, to argue each side and thoroughly understand the potential ramifications of each option. Unfortunately, he doesn't have time to debate with himself. Raymond could die if he dawdles much longer.

With that thought firmly in mind and heart racing, instinct takes over. Kevin turns the key and feels the car tremble beneath him, as if it feels Kevin's fear as its own. With an unexpected ferocity he slams the gas pedal, unable to find it within himself to give a damn about his own safety as the engine roars and the car shoots forward, slamming into and through the old warehouse wall. The car jolts as it hits something hard, and through the debris Kevin can make out one of Murphy's goons go flying across the room. He hits the brakes hard, throws the car into park, and briefly concludes that recklessly bursting into a building with a car is infinitely more satisfying in reality than watching it on television, though he can now understand the appeal of the latter.

Somewhere in his adrenaline-addled mind, it registers just how incredibly impressive he must appear having had no formal training, as he gets out of the car and is able to take Murphy quickly out of commission. Throat-punching the bastard who'd caused this whole "safe house" debacle and forced him to stay cooped up for months with Peralta, of all people, feels much better than it has any right to feel. In fact, he's so busy gloating about his clever laryngeal fracture quip and the sheer relief in his husband's eyes that by the time he notices the gun—

_Bang._

His knee is suddenly on fire, sharp, lighting-fast pain gnawing shockingly hot and cold at once at his nerves. The world narrows to the white-hot waves of agony and nothing else, his vision blurring completely. Kevin shrieks, collapses, barely registers the ground hitting his body over the blaze of wildfire that is his right knee.

The pain is choking and he suddenly can't breathe. He can't think. Someone is screaming and his head slams the ground hard and cold—no, that's the pistol, the pistol slammed into his head, Murphy's holding the pistol that hit his head. His vision fuzzes like ... like ... _something_ , and briefly more terrible than the pain is the loss of his beloved linguistic prowess, however temporary.

Murphy's speaking calmly. His husband is yelling. Jake's yelling too. Someone is screaming. Kevin's knee feels like an earthquake in itself, aftershocks rippling up and down his leg, echoing through his chest. Someone is screaming. He can't move. His throat is burning.

His _throat?_

Oh.  _He's_ screaming. The realization is not as shocking as it could be, though to be fair any shock Kevin has left in him is centered about his shattered kneecap at the current moment.

The pain doesn't ebb. The pain doesn't ebb and his mind doesn't seem to cope with it any better than it did however long ago he was shot, and he was _shot_ , that's hitting him now, Seamus Murphy _shot him in the kneecap_ , which isn't usually fatal, which means he isn't dead. Raymond isn't dead either. Or stabbed again. That's good. His knee—sorry, his _mouth_ is still screaming, though his knee feels as if it's morphed into an eternal flame, crackling hot and heavy along his exposed nerves. That's probably worse than stabbing.

His vision comes back like a traintruck— _firetruck_ , a firetruck, _think properly damn you_ , too bright and red, and it's not his vision that's red so much as his surroundings, which are covered in red. It faintly occurs to Kevin that it's his blood that's all over the place, sticky and red. His hands are wet and warm. He doesn't want to think about it.

He looks away from his hands only to have his mutilated knee catch his eye and he can't help but focus on it entirely. He can see his bone, shockingly white against the red-pink mulch that was his joint. Bones should stay entirely on the inside, unseen. This is very deeply wrong. His knee should not appear to be the same consistency as Cheddar's food. It should not be pink and blown apart and looking completely un-kneelike.

He's clearly in shock. _I'm clearly in shock_ , Kevin thinks. People can die from shock. People can also die from guns, or more accurately from bullets, or more accurately from the blood loss and shock that guns and bullets cause, like the gun that Murphy's currently aiming at his Raymond's knees. A sudden tightness clenches his stomach and he shakes himself, swallows thrice.

"Don't you dare." Kevin manages somehow, dragging his mind back to semi-coherence. "Don't you dare shoot him." As if his mind is triggered by his own voice, he snaps back to himself sharply, a brutal whiplash that makes his head pound. It's an awful sort of clarity—everything is too defined, like he's put on a new pair of glasses and hasn't had time to adjust to the crispness of reality. There's a sheen over Raymond's brow that Kevin wants nothing more than to gently whisk away. He forces himself to look elsewhere.

Murphy's staring at him, a touch wide-eyed. Everyone's staring at him. He's got the room's attention.

His knee (or what's left of it) flares white-hot again and he clenches his jaw tight, forcing himself to speak evenly. "If you shoot him, I swear on my life I will end yours," Kevin says, beautifully coherent for a man who is experiencing increasing levels of blood loss.

"Would you care to lose the other knee as well?" Murphy asks, recovering from his shock only to feign boredom. "Y'know, generally, the guy with the gun makes the rules and the guy who just got kneecapped screams in pain until he's put out of his misery. You ain't really holding up your end of the contract here."

"Leave him alone," Raymond snaps, leaning forward in his chair, clearly trying to get Murphy to focus on him instead. He's very visibly sweating now, all clenched fists and clipped words, over-enunciating everything he says. There's something in his eyes that reminds Kevin of the one time his father had taken him hunting; the look the wounded deer had gotten when it spotted the two of them coming to finish it off. Its eyes had made him nauseous then. Raymond's eyes now stir an anger in Kevin, whose leg is still on fire in the background of his mind, a heavy, exhausting sort of pain. This mental clarity isn't going to last.

Murphy is infuriatingly just out of his reach.

"Or what?" Murphy sighs. "Really, what can you do to me from that chair? You guys really don't understand your roles in this discussion," he shakes his head and takes a step, waving the gun haphazardly in Raymond's face. "Sit back and let me monologue like a good hostage or I'll take off your husband's other kneecap, and maybe his head for good measure," he growls, taking another step threateningly, tantalizingly closer to Kevin.

He doesn't have time to think. Kevin lunges the best he can, striking the tendons on the back of Murphy's leg with his fist with all the force he can muster. The gun and Murphy fall to the ground and Kevin stretches to grab the weapon, crying out as his knee screams in demanding protest. His fingertips brush it and he stretches further, wrenching his shoulder, and for one hopeful moment his fingers wrap fully around the bulk. Then it's unceremoniously plucked from his desperate grasp.

"Okay," Murphy grunts, his voice hitting a deeper register as he fingers the gun. "I've had enough of this," he says, and Kevin doesn't see the pistol-whip coming this time either. He hits the floor with a groan and feels rooted where he lays, unable to do so much as open his eyes. "Now? You die. Be thankful I'm too pissed off to draw this out." Over the throbbing of his head and the screaming of his knee, Kevin hears the sound of a bullet clicking into the chamber.

"No!" Raymond yells, sounding very far away. Jake starts off on a rambling, distracting monologue, which seems to be working for a moment until Kevin hears the butt of the gun connect with what is presumably Jake's jawbone.

The warehouse is horrifyingly silent for one very long moment.

Kevin is certain he is about to die.

Kevin is certain he does not want to die, not here, in front of his husband, bleeding from his decimated knee and laying stunned on this dirty warehouse floor.

There is so much he hasn't done, so much he hasn't said. His heart thuds painfully in his chest as it dawns that he'll never get the chance to make up for implying he wanted a divorce. He will never be able to apologize for putting them all in so much danger. He will never see his husband smile, or laugh, or hear another one of his jokes. The thought is too much to bear. He forces his eyes open to look Raymond in the eye one last time and draws breath to speak, to say something meaningful, to tell his husband he loves him before—


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew. this was hard to write. i hope you all think the wait was worth it. 
> 
> i should probably drop a warning here for suicidal ideation. 
> 
> other than that, enjoy!

Seamus Murphy's gun goes off and Raymond Holt, staring into his husband's wide, pale blue eyes, finds himself unable to do anything but watch, horror-stricken, as Kevin—or what's left of him, he thinks hysterically, eyes unwillingly locked on the exit wound torn through his skull—slumps limply to the ground.

The human head holds a shocking amount of blood.

Some of it has splattered onto his knuckles, uncomfortably warm. He's felt blood on his hands many times before. It seems odd somehow that his husband's blood feels physically no different than a perp's.

He forcibly switches his focus.

Jake's talking lowly but insistently into his ear, his tone level and almost soothing, but with a deep tremor. Whatever he's been tied to this chair with is digging deep into his wrists, though no pain registers in his mind. Seamus Murphy has vanished, like the cowardly scum he is.

For a while, that and the devastating ache of grief in his bones is all he knows.

Time passes as if in a dream, slow and unyielding, like molasses (Kevin hates—hated— _hates_ molasses). His vision remains hazy. Jake continues to make meaningless low noise. He refuses to focus. If he focuses now he will glue his eyes to the body and never see anything else, no matter how fast he looks away.

Eventually, others arrive. He is freed from his bonds. He rises from the chair slowly, as if submerged in water. There's the sensation of disconnection, as if he's only half in control of his limbs and the other half are lost to the shock he's probably in. A cautious step forward. Then another. There is a hand on his shoulder, warm and heavy, and a surge of emotion rocks him briefly, but this hand is not the right size.

"Sir." Jake's voice has an ugly clarity to it; a knife piercing his mind. It is not the voice he wants to hear.

He crouches down, ignoring Jake's concern. He is close enough to touch the body—Kevin. His husband. The body is his husband, who only hours ago was ... was ... arguing with him. Was extremely upset with him. Was unhappy enough to imply he wanted a divorce, even after their long struggle to get married.

As if possessed, his hand reaches out of its own accord to touch. Two fingers press gently against Kevin's carotid artery. He is cold and silent and _wrong_. He is dead. Raymond pulls his fingers away and is suddenly aware that they're coated in dead blood. Kevin's blood. Kevin, who is now dead. Forever.

He turns to the side just as his lunch makes a sudden reappearance. His throat burns and his stomach clenches tightly, though there remains the sensation of being a stranger in his own body as his hands clench and unclench in the debris on the floor. Jake's hand is on his shoulder again. Raymond vomits until there is nothing left to bring up, eyes clenched tightly shut and thinking hard about absolutely nothing at all until the overpowering fear pounding through his veins calms to a dull background thrum.

He will never see his husband's smile again. Hear his laughter. Feel his touch.

He will never again return home after a long day to find Kevin in the study, one leg crossed elegantly over the other, thumbing carefully through their well-worn copy of _The Iliad_ and making notes about homoeroticism— _Homereroticism_ , Raymond had joked once, on their first date, and Kevin had lit up so beautifully, and that he will never be allowed to do so ever again shatters what remains of Raymond's heart—in a different colour than the last along the margins, Cheddar snoozing peacefully at his feet.

"Cheddar," he says suddenly, his voice hoarse and uncertain. "Someone needs to ... to—he can't be left alone for too long." Kevin usually makes his dinner, though Raymond's taken over since he's been at the safe house. He'll have to take over permanently now. Cheddar will be missing him by now.

"I'll find somebody to check on him," Jake promises.

"Thank you," Raymond manages, turning back to where his husband lays.

There's so much blood. A pathetic part of him wants to scoop it up and put it back inside his husband, grab the scattered bits of his skull and brain and frankenstein this beautiful man back together; _anything_ to have him back and smiling and safe. Raymond heaves a few deep, shuddering breaths and tries not to focus on the brutal clenching of his heart that continues to tighten as he takes in every gruesome detail of his husband's murder.

The smell is repugnant. Raymond refuses to attempt to separate any individual scents save for Kevin's cologne, faint and briefly comforting. It is perhaps the only normal thing about this entire ordeal, and Raymond wants nothing more than to cling to it eternally.

For a moment, Raymond is outraged. This isn't how Kevin would want to die, utterly undignified and messy. He deserves better. He deserves something neat and prepared. A quiet passing at home, after a long, happy life. Not ... this. Bloodied on the floor of some random warehouse, his body mangled and disrespected, the hole through his left temple marring his face, which is revoltingly only half-recognisable. If he could still speak, Raymond knows Kevin would be utterly horrified.

Kevin will never be utterly horrified again. Raymond will have to live the rest of his life without him. That is not something he's ever considered. It had never seemed necessary—it was always more likely that Kevin be the widower. Though, they did briefly run through this scenario only a couple months ago, he remembers.

_"Ah, Detective Peralta, how are things going with Kevin, the love of my life? Wait, why are you here at this late hour? And whose blood is that?" Sass had seemed appropriate at the time. It makes Raymond nauseous now._

_"Okay, I get it." Jake had said, clearly not getting it._

_"It's Kevin's? This is devastating. I'm inconsolable. And—" he snapped, purely ornately, stupidly, childishly arrogant. "—I've killed myself."_

He closes his eyes. Death ... certainly is a option. He does not wish to live without Kevin. He isn't sure if he is capable of it, though logically he knows the answer is yes.

He'll have to retire. Move, probably. Go through extensive therapy, most likely for years. He will never be the same. It would be easier to simply give in now, and save himself the pain.

As if in a trance, he glances around the warehouse for the gun. A gunshot wound to the head has the best pain-to-probability-of-death ratio of any suicide method, Raymond knows. Refocusing on Kevin for a moment, he is briefly, hysterically thankful that Murphy chose the gun for his husband instead of slitting his throat as promised. At least he died quickly and relatively painlessly, if one were to discount his decimated knee.

Guilt presses close at his temples. He is unsure if this is his fault, or Peralta's. He does not want to think about it. He does not want to consider hating Jake for the rest of his living days.

Bile rises again in his throat. For a moment, the idea of taking his own life seems unbearably appealing. None of this would need to be dealt with. Regardless of what happens after the end of his life, he'll be happier there than here. It would be simple to carry out.

It would be devastating for the precinct, and his family, and Cheddar, but he chooses not to think about that.

"Sir, they ... they need to move him." Jake's voice cuts into his thoughts.

No. Not yet. He isn't ready for that. "Not yet. Please. I haven't ..." Haven't what? He looks, really looks this time, at his husband, who's almost unrecognisable with the gunshot wound ripped through his skull. _I haven't finished loving you_. He feels a tremor ripple through his body. "Please," he says quietly, too numb to care about the weakness in his voice. "Just a few more moments." It's dark outside. When did it get dark outside?

Jake shifts his weight from toe to heel and back, glancing around uncertainly. "You've been sitting like that for hours, Captain. We should go and let these guys do their jobs." He's clearly trying to be gentle. His eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, his skin paler than usual. His hands are shaking where they're balled into fists at his sides. Raymond's suddenly overcome with a nauseating mixture of compassion and fury, torn between screaming _I told you not to leave the safe house you arrogant bastard_ just to watch him crumble and wrapping an arm around him in comfort. He wonders how Jake's feeling about his role in this.

In the end, Raymond nods stiffly. "Okay," he says simply, trying to be resolute but wanting nothing more than to scream his agony to the sky until he collapses. He reaches out to caress his husband's cheek one final time. The skin is cold and foreign under his fingertips. "Goodbye," he says quietly. "I love you."

Kevin doesn't reply. Raymond reaches out to close his eyes with his fingers, trembling viciously. He takes in a few deep shuddering breaths and huffs them out hard, gathering what little strength remains in his muscles.

Raymond gets up slowly, unwillingly, stiff after not moving for what must have been hours. Kevin looks smaller from this angle. Sadder, if that's even possible.

He rips his eyes away and slowly follows Jake out to the car. Halfway there, he can't help but impulsively look backwards, his breath hitching loudly as he spots the body bag and the man above it slowly zipping it up.

Blinking hard, Raymond turns back to the road ahead of him. There is nothing left for him here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this hurt me so much to write that in the middle of it i had to start writing some fluff about them adopting cheddar. idk when that'll get finished, but just so you know that's the next thing on my to do list. 
> 
> i almost had a scene in here where they go home & cheddar doesnt understand that kevin's dead and raymond just. _breaks_ but it didn't quite fit with the rest of the piece. kill your darlings, as they say (sorry kevin)
> 
> anyway, i had my wisdom teeth removed yesterday and could really use some nice comments (or concrit) to cheer me up and distract me from the painful mess that is now my mouth, so it'd be greatly appreciated if you left one.


End file.
